ColaLife working to get “aidpod” with vitamin A and other “social products” in Coca-Cola crates

Coca-Cola is everywhere. Even in some of the hard-to-reach regions of developing countries, where children die regularly as a result of disease and undernutrition, you can often find a Coca-Cola bottle for sale at the nearest shop or store.

ColaLife is an initiative to get Coca-Cola to open up its distribution channels to save lives, especially children’s lives, in developing countries. They have developed an “aidpod” which would carry “social products,” like rehydration salts and high dose vitamin A tablets, in the Coca-Cola crates that are distributed all over the world. Working with established health and nutrition organizations (like Vitamin Angels!), these “aidpods” would help to reach children in some of the most remote regions of the world.

The videos below explain ColaLife’s work and how the “aidpod” works. You can visit their site at www.colalife.org to learn more and join the initiative. With a larger support base and a louder voice, we can help support ColaLife’s push get CocaCola to open up their distribution networks and help save lives.

03/17/2010

- Sarah Gasca

posted in Vitamin A | Child health | Get Involved |

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Comments

Coca-Cola

Thu, 18/03/2010 - 4:15pm — Simon (not verified)

@Ulrik Thanks for your comment. It's people like you that make powerful corporates like Coca-Cola take notice of projects like ColaLife. There are many concerns about Coca-Cola besides the health concerns you mention* and we are very aware of these. They are important campaigns against what's bad. But ColaLife is different. We are trying to build on an existing distribution system (Coke's) to do some good. >4,000 children die each day in Africa alone from very simple, preventable causes and if we could get simple medicines and other social products to their parents together with the knowledge of how to use them we could have huge impact and make progress where the non-commercial organisations have not succeeded. I am sure that there are many people who work for Coca-Cola who are very excited at the prospect of ColaLife being a success because they care about the issues Vitamin Angels and ColaLife are trying to address as much as we do. * See, for example http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/ and http://killercoke.org/

Coca Cola

Thu, 18/03/2010 - 11:28am — Ulrik (not verified)

I have mixed feelings about this. Coca Cola has a product many people like but it also is not a healthy product. I am not able to support something that is half and half like that. Why not create a healthy drink to begin with? Vitamin A is needed. We know that but how much health is destroyed by drinking Coke to begin with?

Thanks

Wed, 17/03/2010 - 1:21pm — Simon (not verified)

Hello Vitamin Angles! Thanks for bringing ColaLife to the attention of your readers. I'm hoping that we will be working together on trials before the end of the year. Winning the Buckminster Fuller Challenge would help! Regards Simon